Power presses are well known in the manufacturing industry for forming a malleable workpiece into a part. The workpiece is pressed between upper and lower dies to form the workpiece into a desired shape.
Upon completion of a production run for a particular part, the die set in the press is typically removed and an alternate die set is inserted to run a new part. In order to reduce both down time and labor costs associated with changeovers from one set of dies to another, manufacturers have long sought to decrease the cycle time for this die changing operation. In the past, die changes were made infrequently. Consequently, factories could tolerate longer die changing times. However, due to changing manufacturing trends, modern factories often operate with fewer press lines. As a result, the die sets are frequently changed to permit the manufacture of different parts. Thus, it has now become desirable to further minimize the time required for die change operations.
In carrying out the die change operation, past practice has been to utilize a manual changeout procedure. Each step of such a procedure is initiated and completed by the press operator or mechanic prior to commencement of the subsequent step. Consequently, the time required to effect a complete die change in such a manual change-out procedure was directly dependent upon the expertise of individual operators. Accordingly, even when automatic means have been utilized, the sequence of steps required to complete the die change operation has been on the order of approximately three minutes.